Before I begin, this is just my idea. I've spent some time thinking about what would be the best and most exciting way to hold a Championship now that we have control over it. I've never been good at creating customs or custom stats, but one thing I enjoy and reading about are tournaments. Below is a tentative format that I have worked up for a future Championship in 2011 or later, it's a rough draft if you will. I have based this on an estimate of 60-80 players attending a Championship. The number 32 could be conceived as being too high for a cutoff, 24 might be a better number. (top 8 would get byes and 16 would play) I love this game, and I love tournaments. Below is just an idea to get talk and discussion going. Feel free to PM me for a phone number. I would love to actually 'talk' about this and discuss it further.

New Championship Idea Summary:

1. Three day Event2. 5 rounds of Swiss Play3. Large Bracket with Gamers Logo on it

Format:

Friday

Five rounds of Swiss format games will be played, the top 32 people will advance to Saturday’s seeded bracket.

Saturday

The top 32 will be “seeded” into a single elimination bracket depending on how they finished in Friday’s preliminaries. This bracket can either be broken into two 16 person brackets or kept in one large 32 person bracket. For the sake of keeping things simple I have shown how a seeded 32 person bracket would look.

There will be three games played on Saturday to determine the Final Four.

Sunday

The Final Four will play to determine the eventual 2011 Star Wars Miniatures Champion.

Reasons for

I have been thinking for some time now that the Championships need to be changed. Now that WOTC has dropped the SW Miniatures line, the game is in the hands of the players and loyal, contributing fans.

- The people at Gamers have taken it upon themselves to help run and organize events at GenCon. This is probably the biggest blessing in disguise, because now the fans and players can do what is best for the game in keeping it alive.

- Probably one of the best ways to make a Championship more exciting is to change the format. And probably one of the most exciting ways in doing so is for there to be a “seeded” bracket. In creating a “seeded” bracket, players are now trying to strive to make the top 32 on Friday. (I would love to imagine a large bracket with a giant Gamers logo on it as the names of those that made it is written on the bracket as they are announced. I could even see people sticking around to see it even if they know they didn’t make it)

-No more will seven games be played on one long Saturday, when the probability of having players drop out is high because they know they have lost too many games to have any shot of making the Top 8. In a group of perhaps 70-80 players, the odds are greatly increased to make the Top 32 and each game is essential but even 3 losses could possibly get a player into the 32; so the probability of players dropping out have been decreased.

-With the Championship broken into three days, Saturday will not be as strenuous on the players, judges, and event organizers. Because there will be only three games played on Saturday, players will have ample opportunity to attend other SW Miniature events. A “seeded” tournament will also give players time to strategize Friday night for their upcoming game, making it a more competitive and quite possibly an intense filled Saturday. With any “seeded” bracket, the threat of upsets are exciting and this could probably help in bringing those that didn’t make it into Saturday’s event time to stop by to check out the bracket and build quite a following.

- What better way to finish a Saturday then with the Final Four being announced and the true best players to rise to the surface. Plus, who knows, perhaps even a dark horse had somehow surfaced in the upset riddled bracket. Now, with the shortened Saturday the Final Four can now strategize and plan out their attack and best course of action for the push to become Star Wars Miniatures Champion 2011.

- With the shortened Sunday to be limited to just two games, players will not have to leave to rush off for planes/cars/trains home and can stick it out to see who wears the Green Jacket (can’t remember if that’s what Bill brings…but I believe I remember it in ’08).

I would love to see something like this happen in 2011, because obviously 2010 has been well organized by Gamers. But I would like to imagine five years from now talking about how a number 32 (16 if is was a two bracket deal) seed had never upset a number 1 or perhaps a number 1 and 2 seed have never made it to the Championship Game. Something along those lines…because those stats exist right now with the Top 8.

Example: The person who goes undefeated on Saturday has failed to win the Championship. (Please correct me if I’m wrong of course)

Reasons Against

- A new format will be unfamiliar.

- Problems with slow play on Saturday. (But I honestly think that it will be easier on judges to deal with this when only 16 games will be playing that first round on Saturday.)

- Three days is too many for a Championship

- Five games is too little for preliminaries on Friday.

I’m sure there are others, but strongly believe the reasons for changing it up will outweigh the reasons against. The best will always rise to the surface in this format, and the potential for a growth and excitement will be greatly encouraged when all a person has to do is make Top 32 to be seeded into a bracket. And who else doesn’t like to look at a bracket and see your name playing one of the top players in this game. Just the excitement and nerves alone with get players talking about the bracket and even paying stronger attention to what is going on and how it is playing out.

Of course this is just my idea. I would love to hear questions/comments about this.

Author:

The_Celestial_Warrior [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:07 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

I really don't see how this is any different than what we currently have aside from the additional day and the bigger number for cutoff. 5 rounds of swiss in a larger tournament wouldn't be enough to segregate "true" seeds. We already have this problem currently in the top 8, where the tiebreakers still determine who goes Sunday and who doesn't. I think Tim or Aaron have been on the short end of that stick once or twice.

Author:

LoboStele [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:29 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Yeah, Tim Ballard has been in the #9 spot twice now, lol.

I like the idea overall. As TCW pointed out, you're still going to have an issue with seeding, but that's probably going to happen no matter how you do it. If we go with the maximum number of players we've ever had, 90, then you'd still have 3 undefeated players at the end of 5 rounds.

Just looking at a possible outcome for 90 players and 5 rounds, you could end up with:

5-0: 3 players4-1: 12 players3-2: 21 players

So right there, that's 36 players already. So, you would have 4 players at 3-2 that wouldn't make it to the top 32. You're going to need some seriously good tie-breakers to pull that off, IMO. I'm not quite sure the 3/2/0 point system would even be enough to handle that. Hard to say without some good data.

I might suggest that a 6-round bracket would be necessary. Or, the other option, and this kind of goes in hand with what other people have suggested in the past....is that the winners of the Regional events get a free pass into the bracketed segment of the Championship. The Swiss tourney on Friday would be the 'last chance' event. Granted, I guess Regional winners could still play in that event if they really wanted to, they would just get skipped over when determining what additional people get added to the bracket. However, the question at that point would be how to rank the Regional winners in the bracket. Could maybe just randomly place them, or put them on the odd numbers, or clump them in the middle? That's a tricky part.

There's lots of options though, and I think it's worth talking about.

Author:

LESHIPPY [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:38 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Wow three days of championships doesn't leave you any time to do anything else at Gencon. Add into the fact that some people are only able to come for Saturday and Sunday. If it turns into a 3 day event i would expect to see a decline in overall numbers playing in it.

Plus a day of 5 rounds and then a day of 6 is just grueling. Yes I know that many of us play in several tournaments over the weekend and our play time is equal to that, but many of thos are "fun" games, not as serious.

Author:

dalsiandon [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:41 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

I like the idea about regional winners getting a pass into the championship. They have already proved to dominate heir local meta/gaming group and that of hteir home region, why not let them have a shot. It also prevents a fluke loss from not having an opportunity at the title.

Author:

LoboStele [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:43 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

LESHIPPY wrote:

Wow three days of championships doesn't leave you any time to do anything else at Gencon. Add into the fact that some people are only able to come for Saturday and Sunday. If it turns into a 3 day event i would expect to see a decline in overall numbers playing in it.

Plus a day of 5 rounds and then a day of 6 is just grueling. Yes I know that many of us play in several tournaments over the weekend and our play time is equal to that, but many of thos are "fun" games, not as serious.

I don't think you're following the full thing Les. He's suggesting a 5 round event on Friday, and then Saturday would consist of 3 rounds: just cutting from a top 32 to a top 4. Then you'd have 2 more rounds on Sunday. For the 1st and 2nd place finishers, it would be equivalent to the same 10 rounds that we've had in previous years. And anybody who doesn't make the top 32 would be able to do other things on Saturday. Plus, with only a 3 round event on Saturday, would be more open for people to do other things.

Right now, you have to sign up for the Championship, and that's pretty much the only thing you can do all day Saturday. With this suggestion, you'd be able to do at least one other event on both Friday and Saturday, if not 2 other events each day.

Author:

LESHIPPY [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:48 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

LoboStele wrote:

LESHIPPY wrote:

Wow three days of championships doesn't leave you any time to do anything else at Gencon. Add into the fact that some people are only able to come for Saturday and Sunday. If it turns into a 3 day event i would expect to see a decline in overall numbers playing in it.

Plus a day of 5 rounds and then a day of 6 is just grueling. Yes I know that many of us play in several tournaments over the weekend and our play time is equal to that, but many of thos are "fun" games, not as serious.

I don't think you're following the full thing Les. He's suggesting a 5 round event on Friday, and then Saturday would consist of 3 rounds: just cutting from a top 32 to a top 4. Then you'd have 2 more rounds on Sunday. For the 1st and 2nd place finishers, it would be equivalent to the same 10 rounds that we've had in previous years. And anybody who doesn't make the top 32 would be able to do other things on Saturday. Plus, with only a 3 round event on Saturday, would be more open for people to do other things.

Right now, you have to sign up for the Championship, and that's pretty much the only thing you can do all day Saturday. With this suggestion, you'd be able to do at least one other event on both Friday and Saturday, if not 2 other events each day.

ah i see

Author:

Lou [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:32 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

I would love this because i love single elimanation tournys.

Author:

Demosthenes [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:33 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Single Elimination can prove to be really exciting, so I support this idea!

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Darth_Jim [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 6:31 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

I think the seeding of the regional champions could happen just like they do in seeding the NCAA basketball tournament. They should get the higher seeds with the Friday night players filling in the remaining spots. I don't think the regional winners should play in the qualifying rounds; if anything maybe they could play in a seperate 'seeding' tournament to determine their spots in the final 32. The regional winners should be seperated in the brackets so they aren't playing each other straight off; it will make winning a regional even more important.

Overall I like this idea. Plenty of time to talk more about it, but off the cuff I like it.

Author:

Demosthenes [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 6:48 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

What's the total number of Regionals we'll be getting Champions for? That would make playing around with the seedings easier at this point. I was just considering drafting up a bracket with Regionals winners dispersed so as not to play each other in the first round - all in the name of avoiding work on my paper!

Author:

Darth_Jim [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:03 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

12-16 probably...but we may have people winning multiple regionals.

Author:

Demosthenes [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:07 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

So, for the purposes of this Single Elimination section of the Gencon Championship, would the person who placed 2nd in a Regional where the Winner had won a previous Regional get a spot in the Single-Elimination bracket or no?

Author:

Darth_Jim [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:32 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

That sounds plausible, especially if we have 16 regionals. Whatever we do, even if we don't use this format, is make winning a regional more of an incentive to attend regionals.

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ndjarnag [ Wed Apr 28, 2010 9:37 pm ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Great players travel all across the country to make this event happen. If a player places in the top 16 of a grueling swiss event, I really think they have earned the right to play another day!!! So, I think they should expand bracket to 16 and maybe more.

I like the "win or go home" attitude associated with a larger bracket as well. Kinda hypes up the event. Make a giant poster with the names (and possibly squads) filled in. Post it online that night. It would give the the community a better sense of "who made it" and "who is playing who".

Bottom line: The current championship format should be re-evaluated. I think the suggestions here are a good start.

Author:

urbanjedi [ Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:35 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

One question I would have is could you change squads between Fri's prelims and Saturday's Single Elim part. It would be really cool if you could change squads in between.

Also not entirely sure if I like the single elim (only because it would be awful to g0 5-0 on Fri and then get knocked out in rd 1 of the single elim) but I think that we do need to make the regioanls count for something.

Maybe what we could do is keep the current structure but just award byes to the regional winners. (2 byes would probably be a sufficient jump on everyone and would certainly eliminate those early losses for the regional winners)

Author:

LoboStele [ Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:11 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Well, I think the suggestion above to Seed the Regional winners is probably the best one. If you put, say 16, Regional winners in the 1-16 slot, and then fill 17-32 with the players from Friday's games, then it should break things up well enough, that Regional winners or people who go 5-0 on Friday will be playing people who went 3-2 or less, most likely.

If you do the pairings via the 1 vs 32, 2 vs 31, 3 vs 30, etc. then you'd be giving those 5-0 people the most advantage. Could take some work though to make it flow right.

Author:

dnemiller [ Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:44 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

actually seeding the 32 would be easy aaron.

And to make your tie breakers from the 3-2 pool forget 3/2 scoring make your ranking count for something.

so if you get 10 people at 3-2 go by their DCI/Gamers ranking for seating. That would actuallyl mean your ranking counted for something and would encourage ranked play during the year.

Author:

LoboStele [ Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:03 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

dnemiller wrote:

so if you get 10 people at 3-2 go by their DCI/Gamers ranking for seating. That would actuallyl mean your ranking counted for something and would encourage ranked play during the year.

Ooooh, that could be interesting. Take the top 32 players (either based on Regional winners or the Friday Swiss, or a combo of the two), but then do the seeding on Saturday strictly based on your DCI/Gamers ranking. That's not too bad. Could certainly make things interesting, as Dean, you would likely get the #1 seed a lot of times (lol), but it doesn't necessarily mean you'd be facing a horrible player just because they have a low ranking. Take TINT for instance. Excellent player, but very low DCI ranking overall because he just hasn't played that many ranked tournaments over the years.

That could be interesting.

Author:

Demosthenes [ Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:18 am ]

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Re: New Championship Format Idea for 2011 and beyond

Now, I have no aspirations of performing well at Regionals or GenCon in the future, but I have a problem with your suggestion, Dean. If I go 3-2, in your system, I would likely get left out for two reasons that are out of my control: 1) I'm relatively new to the game, and thus probably wouldn't have had time to accrue the rankings that some of the more experienced players have gotten over the years, and 2) Outside of our 4-person play-group, we have NO other players down here, so organizing tournaments and getting ranked tournaments done consistently is a problem for us.

Thus, because of where I live, and my relative newness to the game, I'd be left out. I don't think you'd want to send the message to new players who do well at GenCon that they'll be losing out on a spot in the Championships for these reasons which they have little control over.